Author Archives: Rick Neal

Ashen Stars: Recruitment

By | | Ashen Stars, GUMSHOE, What's he playing?
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I seem to sort of wander backwards into running GUMSHOE games. What I mean by that is that I usually spend several weeks or months planning to run a campaign ((Even a mini-campaign, like this one is going to be.)), but with GUMSHOE games, I wind up running them after a casual conversation and a quick agreement, and then scramble to get the campaign ready to run. That happened when I ran the Armitage Files campaign, and it happened again with Ashen Stars.

In both cases, I had been talking the games up to various people, but not expecting to have a chance to run either any time soon. For Ashen Stars, I had offered to run a one-shot between earlier this month at a game night, but we opted for board games instead. Still, the group was interested enough in the pitch that I’ve agreed to run a mini-campaign, about four or five sessions, covering two to three cases, I’m guessing.

Because of timing and scheduling issues, I decided to do character generation via e-mail, basing my experience on the Trail of Cthulhu character creation process that I used for Armitage Files. I had been dreading running that character generation session, but it turned out to go quickly and easily and got everyone excited about the game, so I figured that this would go pretty easily, as well ((You see what’s coming, right?)).

It has not gone as smoothly as expected.

I’ve been trying to think about why that is. The first thing that came to mind is that this game, unlike ToC, deals with gear in some detail, and wading through the sections on cybernetic and viroware enhancements is a little daunting. But that led me to a number of other choice points in character creation that slowed things down and caused some confusion:

  • Roles. Unlike ToC, where you just pick a profession, AS uses the concept of roles to focus character concepts and ability selections. Roles are different than professions, in that it’s good to have all five roles covered to be an effective squad. Well, all ten, really, once you factor in both warpside ((Aboard the ship.)) and groundside ((I don’t really need to explain this one, do I?)) roles. Actually, eleven roles, including the medic, which is both a warpside and groundside role. Sorting out who was going to take which role and what to do with the leftovers took some discussion.
  • Ship. You start with a ship, picked from a selection of eleven different classes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Analyzing these and deciding between them was another choice-point that required discussion. And a vote.
  • Gear. As mentioned above, the shopping expedition took time. As part of getting gear and enhancements involves divvying up a pool of group money ((Some of which you probably want to save for an emergency fund to repair your ship or pay for maintenance if you wind up waiting a long time between contracts.)) and then budgeting for upkeep for your own cyber or viro enhancements.
  • Personal arc. The personal arc is a beautiful idea for this kind of game, but it takes some time to put together. Especially because it’s a new idea for the gaming group. Fortunately, this is something that doesn’t need to happen right away, and it’s something that each player can do individually, with just a little input from me. The point is that it’s not something that requires group input and decisions.
  • The Bribe(TM). I gave the players six questions about their characters that they could answer or not. For each question they answered, I let them pick from a short list of stuff. Everyone got me their answers ((For all six questions, I might add. Everyone answered every question.)) in quick order, but took their time picking out their rewards. Again, though, this is something that doesn’t require group discussion. Also, it’s completely my fault, and not part of the rules for the game. But it has introduced a delay.

Now, these points are not necessarily bad things. They do a lot to flesh out the characters and the setting, and the end result is going to be some very cool characters.

But.

They do not lend themselves well to creating characters by e-mail discussion. Maybe if I had thought to put up a forum to run character creation, it would have gone smoother and quicker, but I honestly doubt it.

Looking at things, I really should have done more to schedule a character creation session. There’s nothing like being face-to-face for group decision-making. And for explaining some of the more slippery concepts. And answering questions, voting, brainstorming…

There’s been some frustration from the players at what seems like far too much work to create a character. One of my players said to me last night, “I’m really looking forward to playing the game, but man, the character creation just blows.” I don’t think the character creation blows, but the way I managed it certainly does.

In addition to the frustration for the characters, I’ve found that I’ve had to do a lot more work on my end managing the whole process. Keeping everyone on the same phase of the process turned out to be important, as the stuff I sent out for those who were ahead of things turned out to be information overload for those who were on earlier phases. I had to build a spreadsheet and keep sending out updated versions to show people what abilities had been covered. And I think I’ve sent out about 15,000 words of explanation, lists, instructions, examples, and updates over the past three weeks.

Much of what I sent out was aimed at making things easier for the players: suggested gear and enhancement packages, short descriptions of the different ship classes, worked examples of personal arcs, new gear developed at player requests, etc. I don’t begrudge this at all, because it’ll help them have more fun. And besides, I did it to myself.

To help take some of the sting out of this process that has ballooned and morphed from quick-and-easy to long-and-tedious, I’m preparing extensive cheat-sheet packages for each character, with descriptions of their abilities and gear, and such. Hopefully, that will make the actual play move quickly and easily despite the new system, and soon character creation will be a distant memory.

The big lesson learned from all this? Not every game system has a character creation process suited to every type of situation. While I think that e-mail character creation would work fine for ToC or D&D, it does not work for Ashen Stars. And I wouldn’t even try it with Fate.

Despite all of the above points, we have all four characters at a playable state. We were going to have our first game last night, but real life intruded and we’ve had to delay it. But here’s the list of our doughty crew of Lasers:

  • Arón Santa-Ana: Human Stratco/Gunner/Chopper ((I don’t know if the Stratco/Gunner split is going to cause problems in play, but we’re going to try it out. If it’s a real problem, we’ll work something out.))
  • Furan Arrud: Durugh Hailer/Face/Mapper
  • Maxine Kemper: Human Medic/Wrench/Bagger
  • Returner-U: Cybe Pilot/Techo

Tough part is over folks. I promise. From here on out, it’s freelance police in space!

 

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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***SPOILER ALERT***

I’m running Tomb of Horrors for this leg of the Storm Point campaign – indeed, for the rest of the campaign. You may not want to read on if you’re playing the game yourself.

***SPOILER ALERT***

So. One more session to go in the Storm Point campaign.

We actually got a fair bit accomplished this session, partly because of some tricks I stole from Dungeon World. We opened up with the characters in Pluton, just having defeated the bloodshard golems. I’ve pared down the adventure so that we can wrap it up in one more session, so I cut out a bunch of the horribly tough, slogging encounters, and let the characters see the final tomb in the distance, with nothing but a mile of rocky plain and a huge wall of black ice in the way.

At the wall of ice, things started to bog down a bit as they were looking for a way over, under, or around it. After about five minutes of them trying to come up with a way of defeating the wall without engaging the wall, I interrupted and said, “You know, you guys are epic level, now.” They blinked at me for a few seconds, then Thrun drew a pair of daggers and started using them to climb the 150-foot tall wall of necromantic ice, and the rest of the party followed suit.

The climb was a fairly low DC for this tier ((I set it at DC 20.)), but I decided that, if the character didn’t beat it by enough, they would lose a healing surge to the life-sucking cold of it because they stayed in contact with it for too long. And then the same thing climbing down. I managed to suck a couple of surges from two of the party, which was, frankly, better than I had hoped to do.

After the wall, they reached the tomb itself. I described it as a giant skull floating in the middle of a hole in the ground, which dropped away to the astral sea below. They had to cross a 50-foot-wide moat to get in. I was about to describe the crashing boulders flying around in the moat that they would have to use as stepping stones to the entrance, but Faran pulled out the shadow bridge ritual. Because this was pretty much a direct reaction to me telling the players to be epic, I omitted the boulders and had this work, because it was a good chance to reward the cleric who has been collecting and hoarding rituals, and almost never getting to use them.

Inside the tomb, I started describing the maze of extra-dimensional portals and rooms, but they jumped right in with hauling out their mattock of the titans and smashing their way through the walls. This, however, didn’t work for them, as most of the rooms didn’t exist contiguously, or even in the same plane. I explained that to them, and started a special two-part skill challenge.

In the first part, they had to describe the way they were trying to find their way through the tomb to the necromantic engine at its heart. They managed that quite handily. The second part didn’t require any roll; I just asked each player to describe a weird and deadly challenge in the exploration of this tomb that they beat by being awesome. That got me four exciting, character-created scenes for the adventure.

Which led them to the big combat for this session. It involved an aspect of Vecna, an assassin devil, several undead servitors, and a bone collector. I ran it as a rather chaotic, three-way battle: the bone collector was guarding the secret entry into the heart of the tomb, while the aspect of Vecna and his minions ((Which included the assassin devil.)) were trying to win their way into the heart of the tomb to stop Acererak from usurping the godhood of death.

Enter the PCs, and all hell breaks loose.

They woke the bone collector so, rather than facing it after they clean up the Vecna cultists, they got to fight both at once. The bone collector, for its part, was flailing at everyone. And the aspect and devil didn’t worry too much about catching each other in their area attacks.

It was a pretty rough fight, mainly because so many of the creatures drained healing surges, but our heroes triumphed in the end. And in the now-empty pool that the bone collector had used as a hiding spot, they found the teleport circle to the necromantic engine.

When they used it, I read them the description of the giant god-flesh golem that Acererak is now using as a body, and we closed the session for the night.

Next time, the climactic battle, and the end ((One way or another.)) of the Storm Point campaign!

Dungeon World: The Two Proofs

By | | Dungeon World, What's he playing?
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Last Friday night, we were scheduled to play Apocalypse World, but two of the players couldn’t make it, so I was set to cancel. But the other two players said, “Well, can’t we get together and play some boardgames or something?” To which I replied, “Sure! C’mon over!” ((Yeah, I’m a game-whore. I’ll take any excuse to play games.))

When Chris and Elliott arrived, I gave them some options about what game we would play, and Elliott said he wanted to try Dungeon World ((Elliott is running his own AW campaign – in fact, he’s running two of them, I believe – and wanted to see how things were different in DW.)). Chris was okay with that, so I grabbed my DW kit ((I’ve put together kits for a number of RPGs that I bring to cons and gaming events so that I can run a short adventure in the system on the spur of the moment. It usually contains pregens or character sheets, rules, and an adventure, all zipped into a large Tom Bihn clear organizer pouch for easy transport. You can see an example in this post about my Fiasco kit, though that was before I discovered the Tom Bihn organizer pouches.)), handed them the character sheets, and spread a Noteboard on the table to start mapping.

Because both players were familiar with AW, it was pretty quick bringing them up to speed on the DW rules – I just had to explain the differences. We got through character creation – including asking the provocative questions ((Why are you two traveling together? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen here? What are you looking for? Stuff like that.)) that I used to build the adventure – in about half an hour. The wound up playing a fighter and a cleric, both of which were dwarves. They were in this strange land, where dwarves were pretty much unknown, to find a lost dwarf temple and the secret artifact it held.

The cleric had decided that his god was the Delver of What Lies Below, and his order had a tradition of seeking out lost and hidden lore. He had come to this far land where dwarves used to live seeking an ancient temple of his god which was supposed to contain the Golden Proof: a footprint, in solid gold, of where his god last walked on ((Well, under, in this case.)) the earth. The fighter had met him on the journey while he was fighting snow demons in the mountains, and decided to accompany him, as his clan had been wiped out by a mysterious creature years ago and he had nothing better to do ((To be fair, he was also trying to find out what had killed his clan; his only clue was a jagged tooth the length of his forearm.)). After crossing the see, they came to a port city, found out that any dwarves who had once lived here were long gone, and set out across the hills, where they were chased by werejaguars. They finally arrived at the Jungle of Xotoq, and found the first marker statue that points the way to the temple.

And that’s where we started play.

Because they had decided to start in the jungle, just like my first time running DW, I used the same challenge as that adventure, and had assassin vines grab them while they were clearing off the marker statue. The cleric managed to petition his god to gain three words that would stun the thing before it dragged the fighter off into the jungle, and they were able to clean off the statue, looking for the directions to find the temple. Unfortunately, the directions that should have been at the base of the statue were cut away, and replaced with the phrase, “The Grey Ones Rise!”

Lacking solid directions, they headed off into the jungle, arriving at a deep chasm with a river running through it. They cut down a tree to bridge the chasm, but the cleric had some trouble crossing. Fortunately, they had roped themselves together, and the fighter managed to keep them both from falling into the river thirty feet below. Unfortunately, falling off the log while roped to someone standing on the edge of the chasm meant the cleric swung like a pendulum into the rock wall.

The fighter hauled him up, a little worse for wear, and he tried again, crossing fairly easily this time. Which is when the elves popped up and started shooting at them. The cleric was crouched down on the side of the chasm with the elves, while the fighter was still back on the far side. The two characters had each taken a bond about how the other character wasn’t able to take care of himself and needed protection, so the fighter gave the rope a mighty yank and pulled the cleric back into the chasm for another pendulum swing into the cliff face and another desperate haul back up top, all under fire from the elves.

At this point, I decided to up the stakes, and brought out the elven arcanist, who started laying about with blasts of eldritch lightning. Our heroes scampered into cover, but lacked any ranged weapons to shoot back at the elves. With no other recourse, the cleric stood up and basically said, “Stop doing that!”

Turns out the elves had been trying to keep everyone away from the lost temple for generations, but had a prophecy ((Or something. I dunno. I hadn’t fleshed that out very much.)) that dwarves would one day come and lift the curse on the temple. Curse? Why yes, the curse of the Grey Ones, of course, that drove the dwarves away in the ancient times.

The elves healed the dwarves, gave them some food, and let them speak to the Mothers, four ancient elves that had entwined themselves in the roots of a massive tree, becoming the god ((At some point, we established that the elves built their own gods out of ancient elves and fervent belief. I’m not sure where the belief came from, but I like it.)) of the village. The Mothers started out kind of spooky, but soon became a little bit comical as they debated what they should tell the dwarves and began bickering amongst themselves.

In the end, the dwarves learned that the temple was overrun by twisted dwarves with psychic powers that could control lesser beings ((The derros from the DW rule book, but I didn’t want to give them a name to keep them creepy and mysterious.)). And they got guided to the base of the trail leading up to the temple. But the Mothers didn’t know how to lift the curse.

Half-way up the switchbacking trail to the temple, our heroes came across a pack of giant rats ((Re-skinned worgs.)) blocking the path. The fighter, well-concealed and on point, let the cleric, with his terrible, terrible stealth roll, act as bait to lure the rats forward. The fighter then attacked the rats on the flank, but was beset by vicious whispering voices in his head. The fight was nasty, but they managed to kill the rats, and the fighter threw a huge rock up at a concealed cave entrance, dropping the two derros who had been controlling them to the path, where they didn’t last long.

Searching the bodies of the derros, the cleric found that each had a small bundle of wrapped dwarf skin, containing a symbol of the Delver of What Lies Below, pierced by a red iron nail. Spouting some lore, he remembered old stories of how the Delver of What Lies Below was once the Keeper of What Lies Below, until a heretical sect decided that revealing the secrets was better than hiding them. This temple, however, must be a remnant of the Keeper’s faithful.

They followed the twisting cavern the derro had been hiding in down into the heart of the temple: the labyrinth. There, they fought a derro riding on an ogre, killing the derro and freeing the ogre to rampage through the temple. This, while useful, did raise the alarm, so they raced through the labyrinth until they got to a chamber with an ancient dwarf ghost, who told them that one of the exits led up to light, one down to dark, and one to death. I was working out a riddle to force the dwarves to choose a passage when the cleric cast a spell to let his god guide him in the right direction.

So, down they went, into the centre of the labyrinth, pursued by heavy, stomping footsteps. The found a door at the bottom of a spiral ramp and the fighter smashed it open. Inside was a horrible, giant dwarf, pierced by hundreds of red iron spikes, weeping blood from empty eye sockets, with the symbol of the Keeper burning above its head ((A reskinned barbed devil from the rulebook.)). It started tossing them around pretty handily, but the fighter kept its attention while the cleric climbed up its spines to shove his holy symbol into the burning holy symbol above its head.

There was the requisite explosion, and the deflating of the giant down to normal dwarf size, and then our heroes saw the Golden Proof and, beside it, another footprint in the rock – this one of red iron. So, the fighter took his axe to the Iron Proof and destroyed it, bringing the attention of the Delver to this lost outpost of the Keeper, slaying the twisted dwarves who had worshiped the Keeper, and freeing the temple from the curse.

Everyone had a lot of fun with the adventure ((Or so they claimed.)), but I liked it for a different reason. My intention for this evening was to run an entire adventure, start to finish, in one session, based on initial set-up by the players, and shaped by the DW system. I was very pleased that I was able to construct a sensible ((Not perfect, but sensible.)) narrative, build the action, throw several different kinds of challenges at the players, and wrap it up in a satisfying manner. All improvised, all in one session.

That, my friends, is the strength of Dungeon World, in my opinion.

Chris and Elliott are hanging on to their characters in case we play again. I think odds are good.

 

RickFest 2013

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RickFest 2013 was quite well-attended.

RickFest 2013 was quite well-attended.

This past Sunday was RickFest V ((Talking with Chris, we’ve arbitrarily decided that this was the fifth RickFest. It may be the fourth or the sixth, but we’ve officially set it at the fifth.)). For those who don’t know, RickFest is my annual day between Christmas and the New Year when I invite all my friends to come and play games with me. Over the years, the number of attendees has grown such that, this year, I needed a bigger space. So, I rented a local community centre for the day.

Sandy and Michael came by to help me haul everything over to the hall around 11:00, and we were pretty much set up by noon or shortly after.

First thing to set up, of course, is the table of games. There are a total of 31 games on the table. Some other folks brought a few games later on, and the game table expanded to two tables.

First thing to set up, of course, is the table of games. There are a total of 31 games on the table. Some other folks brought a few games later on, and the game table expanded to two tables.

 

Food table came next. As with the game table, it soon needed to expand to two tables.

Food table came next. As with the game table, it soon needed to expand to two tables.

And the kitchen full of chill, rolls, soft drinks, and such.

And the kitchen full of chill, rolls, soft drinks, and such.

 

Folks started showing up pretty soon after set-up. Michael and Sandy, of course, were there from the start, and Paul showed up soon after. Dan and Maddy showed up for a bit, then snuck out again, and came back after a while. Things were starting to roll by then.

Folks started showing up pretty soon after set-up. Michael and Sandy, of course, were there from the start, and Paul showed up soon after. Dan and Maddy showed up for a bit, then snuck out again, and came back after a while. Things were starting to roll by then.

The rules of RickFest are simple: come on by, play some games, eat some food, hang out with some friends. Come and go as you please. Previous RickFests usually had one main game going on the dining table, with possibly a second, smaller game going on the coffee table. This year, though, we had plenty of space, plenty of tables, plenty of games and plenty of folks, so there were often three or four games going on at once. It was almost like a mini-convention, which was fun.

King of Tokyo was the first game I tried at RickFest.

King of Tokyo was the first game I tried at RickFest.

It was also my first time playing King of Tokyo. I gotta say, the game turned out to be the belle of the ball at this year’s RickFest. I played six or seven games of it, including teaching it to a number of kids who attended. It was a huge hit with everyone who played.

The kids also played some Dixit, though I'm not sure they knew the rules. Or any rules. Still, they seemed to have fun.

The kids also played some Dixit, though I’m not sure they knew the rules. Or any rules. Still, they seemed to have fun.

The adults took their game of Dixit a little more seriously. Just a little more, though.

The adults took their game of Dixit a little more seriously. Just a little more, though.

Tsuro of the Seas is always a draw. I think it's the sea monsters.

Tsuro of the Seas is always a draw. I think it’s the sea monsters.

Dave and Kevin came by with the X-Wing set-up they use at conventions. It looked like a good game.

Dave and Kevin came by with the X-Wing set-up they use at conventions. It looked like a good game.

 

We got a chance to try out Eldritch Horror, too. It was van, but not a quick game. Eight players, all of us just learning the rules, made things drag a bit.

We got a chance to try out Eldritch Horror, too. It was van, but not a quick game. Eight players, all of us just learning the rules, made things drag a bit.

Forbidden Island

It was awesome to watch the players getting more and more tense as the water rose in this game of Forbidden Island.

Sentinels of the Multiverse

I don’t get a chance to play Sentinels of the Multiverse often, and I wasn’t able to get in on this session. Apparently, it went well. I need to take more opportunities to play this game, because I always enjoy it a lot.

We played a few other games that I didn’t document – Netrunner, The Resistance, and Werewolf. It was the first time I had played Werewolf, and I found that was a really interesting game. I inadvertently managed to kill off the bulk of the townsfolk myself, without being a werewolf, so I guess that’s some kind of accomplishment.

Things started to wind down around 11:00 pm, so we started packing up the games and cleaning up the hall. I gotta say, my friends were ((As expected.)) awesome helping me clean up and load my car. I had one little hiccup closing up, accidentally setting off the alarm, but I got that reset and made it home by 1:00 am.

It was a really full day – a really long day – but a really fun day. The new venue ((Wildwood Park Community Centre, for those who are interested. I know at least one person in attendance wanted the rental information, but I can’t remember who. Whoever it was, the link should help you out.)) worked wonderfully; it was big enough to hold everyone and run multiple games, while not being so big as to make the party with all your friends feel too big and impersonal.

Some lessons learned, though:

  • I made waaaaaay too much food. The party was a pot-luck event ((Previous RickFests, I provided all the food and beverages. This year, I went the pot-luck route to help defray the costs of renting the hall.)), but I learned hospitality from my mother, who always goes overboard. Too may leftovers, even after sending a lot of it home with the other attendees.
  • I also went overboard with the accoutrements of food: plates, cups, utensils, napkins, etc. At least those won’t go bad,
  • I managed to pack all my games to carry them to RickFest into two large packs. At the end of the evening, though, the games wouldn’t fit back into the bags ((Because volume is apparently variable in this reality. Normally, I’m really good at packing stuff into spaces that shouldn’t fit them – it comes from my time working at a bookstore, packing up returns.)). Now, part of it is that I was tired and rushing, but it would have been pretty easy to make up a packing list and order when I packed the bags to make it easy to repack at the end of the evening.

Overall, though, I think this was the best RickFest yet. I’m planning to rent the same community centre next year, because it was about perfect.

Thanks to all my friends for coming out, playing games, and making RickFest the success it was. Special thanks to the good, strong-backed folks who helped me tote stuff, set-up, and tear down.

Tune in next year for RickFest VI, the Eleventh Most Wonderful Time of the Year ((Actual wonderfulness may vary.)).

 

 

Dateline – Storm Point

By | | Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Storm Point, What's he playing?
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***SPOILER ALERT***

I’m running Tomb of Horrors for this leg of the Storm Point campaign – indeed, for the rest of the campaign. You may not want to read on if you’re playing the game yourself.

***SPOILER ALERT***

The latest session of our Tomb of Horrors adventure, and the Storm Point campaign, was a little scattered. Not only were the players getting familiar with their newly leveled-up characters and all their new options, but it was the start of the Christmas season, so everyone ((Myself included.)) was very much in the socializing mode. Still, the end of the campaign is in sight, and the players are starting to get jazzed about the new Edge of the Empire campaign, so I played the heavy a bit to get things focused and moving.

Because we spent so much time at the beginning of the game socializing, I glossed over the way they had discovered the next phase of dismantling Acererak’s plans. Originally, I had thought to run a pseudo skill challenge, much as I had done when we started the Abandoned Tomb adventure: asking the characters what they had done to winkle out the information, and giving them a roll based on that ((I freely admit that there are some issues with this approach in that it can cast the spotlight a little more on the characters with the most relevant skills, but it also rewards creative skill use. And it can generate some interesting backstory elements.)), but with time being what it was, I figures we should get right to the encounter.

The fight was nasty – three bloodshard golems, amidst a number of nasty blade traps. Thrun the Anvil, however, pulled off one of the most perfect examples of the Defender role that I have ever seen: he focused on one of the golems and spent every turn knocking it down and dazing it, keeping it completely out of the fight until the party finished off the other two golems and came to put the poor, shamed, tanked golem out of its misery.

I threw one other thing into the fight, because it seemed cool at the time, and the players loved it when it first happened. When the first golem got shoved into one of the blade traps ((Which, according to the adventure, would not activate as long as a golem was adjacent to it.)), I let the impact smash that pile of animated blades, removing it from play. There followed some wonderful convolutions as our heroes worked out the best way to sweep away the blade traps using forced movement on the golems.

It was a moderately fun fight, but high-level fights in 4E do tend to run long because of the huge amounts of hit points the monsters have. We finally wrapped up the fight and ended the evening on a pretty high note.

We’ve got just two sessions left in the campaign. Then, the Storm Point crew will trade in their hippogriffs for starships.

Guess I better learn the system.

RickFest is Coming!

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Several years ago, my friend Chris and I were talking ((Like you do.)). We decided that the stretch between Christmas and New Year’s Eve needed a day when we got together and played boardgames and card games. We basically flipped a coin, and decided I would host it.

Thus was RickFest born.

Each year, RickFest has grown, as those who attended the previous year ask if they can invite someone else. Last year, it became painfully obvious that my little condo could not accommodate everyone who wanted to attend ((And there were more people that I wanted to invite, but that would be madness. MADNESS!)). We closed off RickFest ((Well, RickFest Primus; in a misguided and not-to-be-repeated experiment, I broke RickFest into two days. RickFest Secundus, though fun, was not well-attended.)) last year with a 13-person game of Cards Against Humanity, which completely filled my living area, all my chairs, and a significant portion of my floor.

This year, I’ve rented a small community centre hall for RickFest and, to help defray costs, made the event a pot-luck affair. The fact that the hall can hold up to 50 people meant that I could expand my guest list significantly – if everyone shows up at once, we’ll have over 40 people there!

I suspect that the extra room, and tables, will mean that things work a little more like a game convention this year, with folks grabbing a game and a table and playing. There will probably be a couple of big games going on, filling part of the day – I’m betting on at least one game of Eldritch Horror and Firefly.

Things start around noon tomorrow, and I’ve just got a few little things to finish up today: buying some soft drinks and ice, packing and sorting some games, finishing up the cheese ball. It decided to dump some actual snow on us last night ((I know. Strange for Winnipeg in winter.)), so I’m really glad there’s not much running around needed.

Stupid snow. I hate it. But better today than tomorrow. Hopefully everyone will be dug out in time for RickFest!

Stupid snow. I hate it. But better today than tomorrow. Hopefully everyone will be dug out in time for RickFest!

So, yay! Tomorrow is RickFest, the Eleventh Most Wonderful Time of Year!

The Dolorous Stroke

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The brave Knights of CAMELOT Trigger face off against MerGN-A and her army of Emergents. Illustration by Brett Barkley. Used with Evil Hat's permission.

The brave Knights of CAMELOT Trigger face off against MerGN-A and her army of Emergents. Illustration by Brett Barkley. Used with Evil Hat’s permission.

So, yesterday, I did a post about the Fate Worlds books. One of the settings in Worlds in Shadow is called CAMELOT Trigger ((I got the capitalization wrong throughout the entire post. Also, whenever I referred to it on Twitter or Facebook yesterday. This is the correct capitalization.)), by Rob Wieland, and a couple of folks in my gaming group got really excited about the idea of Arthurian giant robots in space ((Really, who can blame them?)). They’re hinting rather strongly that I should run a game.

Now, I don’t have time in my game schedule right now, but we are moving into the endgame for my Apocalypse World campaign, and are about the enter the last act of my Civil War campaign. That means I’m starting to think about what to replace them with, and so I’ve been considering CAMELOT Trigger.

One of the things I like about CT is that it gives enough detail to give you a good idea about the feel of the setting, and the broad strokes of the current situation. All the elements, moreover, are poised to provide interesting, dynamic conflicts for the characters to resolve, no matter where you want to slot them in. There’s the standard fighty bits one would expect playing giant space knights, but there’s also opportunity for intrigue, diplomacy, mystery, reconstruction, and quests.

What this really means to me is that, to run a game in the CT, you need to decide what the game is going to be. And, because I’ve been talking about it with a couple of my players, I’ve been thinking about that.

First, a caveat: if/when I actually run this game, I’m going to involve the players in designing the campaign, using the campaign creation rules in Fate Core. That just gives you more player investment. What follows is just a thought exercise, me testing to see if I can come up with a decent campaign idea that I like within the framework of the setting ((The answer, for those who haven’t guessed, is, “Yes.”)).

And thus, we have…

The Dolorous Stroke

Some say that the problems arose when Sir Balin, an Edge Knight, struck down one of the Petty Titans, bringing all the careful political balancing that Arthur had done crashing down. But Balin – and his Dai-5H0 armour – has vanished. The disaster brought all the simmering resentments and hidden secrets to the fore. Now, the entire solar system is starting to collapse into warring human states.

After the Betrayal ((Note that I probably want to but a twist on the whole love triangle thing in play, but will be looking to the players to help define that.)), the alliance between the Inner Worlds is in disarray. Queen Valerie has returned to Venus, L4-NC3-L07 has abandoned his rulership of Mars to hunt Emergents in the Wreck. Rumours of a cunning nano-viral attack on Avaluna Base that has incapacitated both the King and MerLN are fed by the fact that John Arthur has sealed himself up in Avaluna Base. And MerLN, once so chatty during transit through the Breach, mutters and laughs to himself, uttering gnomic – and terrifying – prophecies to those Knights he bothers to address.

The Emergents are taking advantage of this collapse to mount new offensives against the humans. News of falling enclaves of humanity arrives weekly, and everyone is pulling back to defend their own borders.

Almost everyone.

A small group of Knights, Arthur’s most trusted warriors, have sworn that the light of Earth shall not be so easily extinguished. Something may be wrong with the King, but something is definitely wrong with MerLN. Fix MerLN, and they will have a powerful tool restored to help them fix the rest of the solar system.

And to fix MerLN, they will need the help of a dead woman. They need Dr. Vyvyan Locke.

So? Whattaya think? I think it’s definitely a gamable little campaign idea.

Worlds Enough, and Time

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The other day, Rob Wieland ((Who is a pretty awesome guy; he ran a Firefly RPG game session at GenCon last year that I was lucky enough to play in.)) let me know that he had hacked together a Fate iteration of 7th Sea, a swashbuckling adventure game set in a fantasy version of 17th-century Europe. It was always a cool setting, but I was never a big fan of the system, so seeing something like this made me very happy.

Actually, Rob did something even cooler than write up a Fate version of 7th Sea. He wrote up two versions: one for Fate Core, and one for Fate Accelerated. Now, using the hacks requires knowledge of the 7th Sea setting ((No, it doesn’t, really. You can use the hacks and make up what the setting-specific stuff means. And they’re easily adaptable to other swashbuckling settings. But if you want to play in the 7th Sea setting, you’ll need info about the setting.)), but even if you don’t have that knowledge, the constructions and choices made for the game are a great example of how the Fate system can be hacked to support a setting. And the fact that there are both Core and Accelerated versions for your perusal means that you can see two different ways to implement a setting.

And, of course, Rob’s posts got me thinking about the Fate Worlds books: Worlds on Fire and Worlds in Shadow.

These books are presented as volumes of settings for Fate Core. Each one presents six different game settings, complete with NPCs, specialized mechanics, and other story elements. Some of the settings are effectively one-shots or short campaign frames that you can use to extrapolate out to full campaigns, while others are much broader. All are eminently lootable for your own settings. Here’s what you get:

Worlds on Fire

  • Tower of the Serpents is essentially a swords-and-sorcery one-shot adventure. The setting is is more implied by the adventure than explicitly discussed, but it meshes with a lot of the examples in Fate Core to give you a solid foundation to start playing a low-fantasy campaign.
  • White Picket Witches embraces all the tropes and tangles of modern supernatural soap operas as you play inhabitants of a small town where witchcraft allow the five families to effectively run the town. There are some great rules for dramatic face-offs, social conflicts that deal with status and dominance. There’s enough stuff here to kick off a whole campaign, and the drama and relationship interactions will just keep generating stories as long as you want it to.
  • Fight Fire is a campaign frame about fire fighters. It splits its focus between the dramas of the fire fighters’ personal lives and some wonderfully detailed rules on how fires work and how they are fought. Even if the whole setting doesn’t grab you, looting the fire rules for another setting can make the idea of a building catching fire far more terrifying ((And thus more fun.)).
  • Kriegszeppelin Valkyrie lets you play a famous WWI fighter pilot of your choice as you hunt down the titular airship to end the Kaiser’s threat once and for all. It’s effectively a single adventure, though one that will probably take a few sessions to play, and it can easily be used as a springboard into a pulp 1920s game.
  • Burn Shift is a kind of post-post-apocalyptic setting. The apocalypse has happened, the terrifying struggle to survive has happened, and now things are settling into a new status quo, and you get to play the folks deciding what that status quo is. You get all the wonderful mutant character options you’d expect in a whacky Gamma World game, coupled with a situation where you can choose the directions society is going to move. The resolution of the default starting situation will probably take several sessions, and will generate more follow-on goals and problems for the characters, building the campaign nicely.
  • Wild Blue is… okay. Follow me here. Wild Blue is a western with superheroes and faeries. It’s got some of the feel of the ancient Celtic superhero ((Oh, come on! The Fenian Cycle, with Fionn mac Cumhaill, has all the tropes of superhero comics, including the fan culture surrounding the heroes! It would work!)) campaign that I keep toying with in my mind, moved up in time to the old west. If that doesn’t grab you, the super power rules are quite lootable for other games. But this is a complete campaign frame with lots of potential.

Worlds in Shadow

  • CrimeWorld is less a setting than it is a setting overlay. It’s written by John Rogers ((Yes, that John Rogers.)), and it gives you advice for bringing cons and heists into any setting you might like. It’s a good primer for anyone wanting to run any sort of caper game in any setting and any system ((I’ll also point you towards the Leverage RPG at this time.)).
  • Timeworks is, as you might guess from the title, a time travel setting. The twist is that Timeworks Incorporated is a small company of time travelers ((Mainly ex- or not-so-ex-criminals.)) employed by corporations to adjust history to favour their clients. The corporate set-up is clever, and the time travel mechanics are solid and flavourful without becoming too arcane.
  • The Ellis Affair takes historical fact – the mysterious death of Earl H. Ellis, a Marine Corps spy in South East Asia in 1923 – and uses it to launch a pulp spy/mystery story. This is a single adventure, though one that will take a few sessions to play through, I expect ((Though I can also see it being scaled down and sped up to get through is a single session for a convention or similar.)), and provides a lot of good advice for running mystery adventures in Fate.
  • No Exit is a single scenario, probably playable in a single session. The idea is that the characters are tenants in a housing complex where they can’t leave. The exact nature of the complex is left up to the GM to determine, and play revolves around figuring out what’s going on and, possibly, escaping. There are lots of nice, atmospheric bits to help play up the isolation, claustrophobia, and paranoia of the setting, and some advice on expanding the idea for longer play.
  • Court/Ship is set in Versailles in 1754. Lots of fancy food, court politics, intrigue, some duels… and aliens. Aliens who are invading in secret. They kill and eat humans, then wear their skins to pass among them. So, into the debauched court of Louis XV comes another scheming faction to mess with folks. The setting has hints for running it as a short, medium, or long game, and plenty of information on the time period – complete with relevant aspects.
  • Camelot Trigger was written by Rob Wieland ((Remember him? Told you he was awesome.)), and takes the Arthurian Round Table and puts them in giant robot armour to battle the robotic armies of MerGN-A out among the planets of the solar system. There are special rules for giant robot armour that can be ported to other giant robot armour games, and the skills get a nice tweak to reflect the space chivalry of the setting. Lots of solid stuff for a lengthy campaign, or for a pleasant session or two of diversion.

So, there it is. If you’re a fan of Fate Core or Fate Accelerated, but are wondering what to do with it, these two books should go a long way towards helping you out. I recommend you pick them up, even if you’re just looking for inspiration.

 

Followin’ Yonder Star

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Imagine Games and Hobbies, all ready for Winnipeg Harvest Game Day.

Imagine Games and Hobbies, all ready for Winnipeg Harvest Game Day.

Yesterday was the Winnipeg Harvest Game Day at Imagine Games and Hobbies, here in Winnipeg. It’s an annual day when the store hosts a number of games, collecting donations for Winnipeg Harvest. As has been my tradition for the past few years, I was down there all day, running a game. This year, it was a Firefly RPG adventure.

Lots of other stuff going on, too:

A Wings of War game, with airships and - I believe - Snoopy.

A Wings of War game, with airships and – I believe – Snoopy.

An asteroid field for X-Wing. The game involved some chocolate spacecraft.

An asteroid field for X-Wing. The game involved some chocolate spacecraft.

A table of boardgames for people to pick up and play.

A table of boardgames for people to pick up and play.

Snacks! You need to have snacks if you're going to be playing all day. Thanks to Wendy for keeping us all fed!

Snacks! You need to have snacks if you’re going to be playing all day. Thanks to Wendy for keeping us all fed!

And here's my post - all ready and waiting for my players to arrive.

And here’s my post – all ready and waiting for my players to arrive.

So, I had a sign-up sheet at the store for about a week, letting people sign up and reserve their favourite Serenity crew member to play. I was slightly concerned, because there were only three people signed up on Friday. But by the time I got in to the store around 11:30 on Saturday, we had seven people signed up – only Simon Tam and Inara Sera weren’t claimed.

Game time rolled around ((We actually got a bit of a late start – two players called and said they’d had car trouble but would be at the store soon. One other player just didn’t show, so no Shepherd Book.)), and we jumped in with a quick briefing on how the rules worked. It took only about fifteen or twenty minutes to give folks a rundown of the system – enough so that they understood the basics of building dice pools and spending and earning plot points.

There’s a twist to these games – Cheat Tokens. To encourage donations, for every dollar worth of food ((Or money.)), a player gets a Cheat Token. These can be used in the game for special advantages. For Firefly, I decided that the Cheat Tokens could be used to re-roll any die, even a jinx.

One final twist is the prize. Wendy ((Owner and manager of the store.)) always goes above and beyond, creating amazing edible prizes for each game. But because there’s a prize, there must be a winner, and that’s always challenging in an RPG. I fell back on the technique I used in previous such sessions: I divided the game into three acts and, after each act, the players voted ((By giving their choice a jingle bell.)) on who had done the coolest stuff that act. At the end of the game, whoever had the most jingle bells was the winner ((Seems simple, but just wait for it.)).

This is the prize made by Wendy for the Firefly game. It's made of fondant, and is edible.

This is the prize made by Wendy for the Firefly game. It’s made of fondant, and is edible.

And here's our crew, ready to misbehave.

And here’s our crew, ready to misbehave.

And so we started the adventure.

The adventure was pretty simple: the owners of three moderate-sized corporations hired Serenity to ferry them in secrecy from Bellerophon to St. Alban’s. They had heard that someone on St. Alban’s had managed to create a satellite power broadcast system that could revolutionize life outside of the Core Worlds. These three businesspeople wanted to form a joint corporation to help the creator bring his prototype into production. Of course, Blue Sun had also heard about this development, and were just a step behind our heroes.

I had three pages of rough notes for this adventure – one of the great things about Cortex Plus, especially its Action iteration ((That’s Leverage and Firefly, so far.)), is that a lot of the interesting stuff comes out of complications in play. It’s a simple system to improvise in ((After a little practice, of course.)), so I just needed a rough outline of events and a few notes about the kinds of things that could go wrong.

It helped that MWP has released a number of adventures in the Echoes of War line, full of eminently lootable NPCs, scenes, roll examples, and other resources. I had them all in a big binder at the table, so I could look up useful bits on the fly.

Some highlights from the game:

  • Zoe blowing up the batteries at the engineer’s cabin to distract the Blue Sun forces. The cabin burned down.
  • Wash plotting a fast course to St. Alban’s to beat the Blue Sun pursuit ((It didn’t work, but it was a damn good try.)).
  • Kaylee and River working together to hide their passengers from a search of the ship.
  • Jayne shooting the Blue Sun thug who was holding a gun to the engineer’s head, thus ending the hostage situation.
  • Mal leading everyone in a complex, sneaky plan to distract the Blue Sun salvage ship while Jayne and Zoe stole the functioning power satellite right out from under their noses, and Kaylee shut it down before it fried everyone.

We all had a great time, and, at the end of the game, each player had three jingle bells. Yup. Six-way tie. They’d been spreading the votes around pretty evenly. So, I tossed a d6, and Karen won.

At which point, Nathan threw down his last Cheat Token, and said, “Reroll that!” There was some grumbling, but in general, everyone was good about it – we had decided that Cheat Tokens were good for rerolls, after all. I tossed the d6 a second time and the prize went to Sarah ((Fortunately, not to Nathan. I think that might have resulted in a riot.)).

Here's the crew, with Sarah proudly holding her prize.

Here’s the crew, with Sarah proudly holding her prize. Nathan is eyeing her rather jealously.

All in all, a fun day.

Thanks to the folks who came out to play Firefly with me:

  • Steven as Mal
  • Karen as Zoe
  • David as Wash
  • Nathan as Jayne
  • Sarah as Kaylee
  • Kelsie as River

Thanks also to Wendy, Pedro, Perry, Matt, and Mike ((Technically Kelsie, too, but I’ve already thanked her, and she doesn’t get two thank-yous. Nor does she get a mind-controlled army of mutant orphans like she did last year.)) at Imagine for organizing, running, and provisioning this awesome day.

And thanks to the good folks at Margaret Weis Productions, especially Christi Cardenas, who eagerly jumped in with some great support for those who participated in the game. This is just one more reason I love MWP – they’re great people, who also make great games.

I haven’t got a total of what was raised this year, but the box of donations was pretty full when I left. Thanks to all the gamers, whether they played my game or not, who brought a little something to help make sure that everyone has a better holiday season this year.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Winnipeg Harvest Game Day

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Once again, Imagine Games and Hobbies here in Winnipeg is hosting a game day to collect donations for Winnipeg Harvest. I will be running a Firefly RPG game this year:

Followin’ Yonder Star…

The job pays well, and it ain’t too hard. All you gotta do is ferry some high-falutin’ business types from Bellerophon to St. Alban’s and help them find some he li ji qun ((Crane among the chickens – someone who stands out.)) there. ‘Course, ya gotta baochi anjing ((Keep it quiet.)), ’cause of some kinda business reasons, but that ain’t so hard.

This one’s sure to go smooth ((If you keep saying it, it’ll be true eventually, right?)).

Game Day is this coming Saturday, December 14. The Firefly RPG game starts at 1:00, and will run about four hours. Entry fee is a non-perishable food item donated to Winnipeg Harvest. Extra food items donated will get you Cheat Tokens that you can use in the game to sway things in your favour.

You can sign up at the store to reserve your favourite crew member to play. Also, everyone who plays will receive instructions on how to get a free download .pdf from the Echoes of War adventure line, courtesy of the fine folks at Margaret Weis Productions.

So, come on down and play with me this Saturday. Not only will it be fun ((And it will be fun!)), but it’s helping out a good cause.